Neil J. RubenkingBitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013 does everything an antivirus should and includes useful bonus features. It performed very well in our testing and in independent tests as well. Full cleanup of infested systems can take a long time and in testing causes some collateral damage, but Bitdefender tech support handled damage control very well.

Cleanup of infested systems can take a long time. In testing, cleanup caused some collateral damage.

Bottom Line

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013 does everything an antivirus should and includes useful bonus features. It performed very well in our testing and in independent tests as well. Full cleanup of infested systems can take a long time and in testing causes some collateral damage, but Bitdefender tech support handled damage control very well.

Very Good Protection Naturally it's easier to keep malware from invading a system that's already protected by security than it is to root out entrenched threats. Bitdefender's protection scores are good, but others did even better.

Bitdefender wiped out over 80 percent of the threats as soon as I opened the folder containing my collection. It blocked a few others during install, or upon launch, but totally missed a handful. Interestingly, two of those it missed were detected during cleanup testing.

With 89 percent detection and 8.9 points Bitdefender turned in a decent showing. However, ZoneAlarm detected 95 percent and scored 9.3, and SecureIT ($1.95/month direct for three licenses, 3 stars) did even better, with 97 percent detection and a score of 9.7.

The only product tested using the previous malware collection that scored higher than SecureIT was Webroot, with 100 percent detection and a full 10 of 10 points for blocking.

Like SecureIT and ZoneAlarm, Bitdefender detected every single rootkit sample. ZoneAlarm took a perfect 10 for rootkit blocking, edging out 9.8 points by SecureIT and Bitdefender. For a full explanation of where these numbers come from, see How We Test Malware Blocking.

The malware blocking test uses samples that I downloaded previously. When I tried to re-download my current collection, Bitdefender's response was impressive. Of course some of the URLs are no longer valid, but of those still functioning, Bitdefender blocked 82 percent before my browser could reach the dangerous page. It blocked another 9 percent before the download completed. With 91 percent blocking overall, it's the most effective of products tested using my current malware collection.

By default, Bitdefender monitors all applications and halts those that exhibit suspicious behavior. Behavior-based systems can sometimes block valid programs, so I installed and ran 20 old PCMag utilities, utilities that some trigger-happy behavior-based detection systems will identify as malicious. Bitdefender correctly left these tools alone. The only false positive I encountered was a rootkit detection tool from another vendor, and I can't blame Bitdefender from thinking the chicanery needed to detect rootkits might itself be dangerous.

Last year Bitdefender actually beat Norton's detection rate by 8 percentage points. This year it's a single point behind, but that doesn't mean Bitdefender got worse. Rather, Norton got better. Bitdefender also beat Internet Explorer by 52 percentage points. Given that almost three quarters of recently-tested products were less effective than IE alone, Bitdefender looks darn good. The article How We Test Antiphishing explains exactly how I derive these scores.

Bitdefender also blocked a significant number of URLs that were no longer valid. Fully a third of those it blocked just returned an error message in the other two test systems. For testing purposes I omit any URLs that are no longer active, since they're no longer any threat.

The product also offers phishing protection and message encryption for instant messaging, but its system requirements are very specific. You get phishing protection strictly for Yahoo Messenger 8.1 and higher, and your IM conversations can be encrypted if both you and your correspondent have the correct version of Yahoo Messenger and are both running Bitdefender.

Neil Rubenking served as vice president and president of the San Francisco PC User Group for three years when the IBM PC was brand new. He was present at the formation of the Association of Shareware Professionals, and served on its board of directors. In 1986, PC Magazine brought Neil on board to handle the torrent of Turbo Pascal tips submitted by readers. By 1990, he had become PC Magazine's technical editor, and a coast-to-coast telecommuter. His "User to User" column supplied readers with tips...
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